i always find my way back to you. my heart combusts into flames every time.

i realise that there is no lost time between us, even though the last time you saw me was a year ago on the park bench under the moonlight and you had tears in your eyes and heart in my shaky fingers. it was too heavy to hold, to lift up, to savour—

so i let it slip through,

and we watched as it plummeted to the ground and continue to beat; blood and sweat mixing in with the heavenly dirt.

i tried my hardest to forget you after all these years, but somehow i am back where i started. nervous laughter and sweaty hands,

i wondered if you noticed? i tried to swallow you whole but i coughed you right up along with my lungs and my stomach. there is no other explanation for how you stole my breath away or how i always seem hungry for your touch.

but you understood and never pushed for more, you gave me more than i ever asked for. and unknowingly, so did i. your mischievous smile and eyes of fire, you made me feel both heaven, hell— and maybe even more if i had let you.

back on the park bench where dew drops sparkled on leaves and the trees swayed to the soft music playing through your ear buds, the night air whispers something forbidden. you still hold me like you know me.

you remember the way i leaned into you, and how you angled your limbs to fit mine. you said you were happy with her and i didn't question it a single bit, but somehow your hand found it's way to my thigh. it was nothing perverse or forceful or wrong— it felt like a warm embrace. you let me know that i was real.

and for a moment i fell in love all over again, and i couldn't tell if my heart bursting was because i hated this old familiar feeling or because my beating heart still remembers you and all the ways you made me feel. the feelings that i had tried so hard to forget all those years ago, the memories that i only look back at when i clean my room and find your name carved slyly behind my closet door. how you made me laugh, how i made you cry, how you made me feel like i was floating and how

i let you love me.

perhaps i should have let myself do the same.